Determining the Random
by thinkatory
Summary: At some point between Journey's End and Children of Earth, a series of identical suicides break out, and one of Ianto's Cardiff press contacts - Jennifer Wilson - goes missing. As it turns out, Gwen and Ianto aren't the only ones intrigued by the case.
1. Chapter 1

Torchwood/Sherlock crossover, canon pairings, including Jack/Ianto. Due to have 3 chapters. Set between Journey's End and Children of Earth, a series of identical suicides break out, and one of Ianto's Cardiff press contacts - Jennifer Wilson - goes missing. As it turns out, Gwen and Ianto aren't the only ones intrigued by the case...

**Determining the Random**

Ianto knows that look on Gwen's face. It means something's stuck in her craw, and there's only a matter of time before -

"What's she going on about, 'serial suicides'?" Her attention's too directed towards the news programme for her to turn around and direct the question to him.

Ianto spares a glance at her interface, where a sharply-dressed Jennifer Wilson (in a shocking shade of pink) has finished briskly speaking on the rise of suicide. "Slow news day," he dismisses. "She's quite good."

"Hmph." There she goes, frowning that way. There's a reason they don't let Gwen deal with journalists (also read: make Ianto deal with all of the journalists); for some reason it surprises her that the press corps might want to make money off of the misery of others. "Jack thinks I'm making too much of it."

He scribbles a note in his journal - _ph JW_. "Sorry, too much of what?"

"The 'suicides'." She's doing fingerquotes in the air.

"Would you like some coffee?" he asks seamlessly.

"Thanks, Ianto. "

She's wearing her "missing Rhys" look, if memory serves; it's been a long couple of days of nervewracking quiet, and even Ianto sometimes wants to go home at times like these. He fetches some coffee, prepares it as she likes before he brings it to her. "I _know_ there was no Rift activity," she tells him after a nod of thanks. "But this; it's _too_ random."

"The universe is random," Ianto returns, an idle platitude of Jack's.

"Human beings aren't," Gwen says. She's got that half-smile now. She knows she's got his interest.

Damn.

"Iantoooooo," Jack calls from the shower. "What's the holdup?"

"Just a minute," Ianto calls back, and listens to the twelfth ring, the thirteenth, the fourteenth.

He turns it off, sends off e-mails to the police contacts, and tosses his phone aside. Jenny Wilson doesn't screen his calls, not since he caught her with her last (and incidentally, chronologically displaced android) boyfriend. She'd answer.

Scotland Yard sends him all the information he asks for, and more.

It doesn't really surprise him when the MISPER notice pops up for Jenny. If working for Torchwood teaches you anything, it's that the worst case scenario is sometimes just shorthand for what comes next.

"Ianto," Jack starts, his voice and expression full of warning.

He's never liked standing in front of classrooms. The conference room isn't much better.

"Hear us out, Jack," Gwen interjects, gently firm.

Ianto meets Jack's gaze steadily and smiles first, barely the quirk of a lip, before he rifles through his papers to get a start.

He flicks on the screen, and the pictures pop onto the screen. "I take it Mr Phillimore, Sir Jeffrey Patterson and Jennifer Wilson don't need any further introduction. As you both know, our alien trading networks have been buzzing for the past six weeks. _Two_ of the victims of these 'serial suicides' are known associates - "

"Wilson and her android boytoy," Jack prompts, "and..."

"And James Phillimore, yes!" Gwen sits up, keen, thinking. "One of our witnesses for the case with the hand, wasn't he?"

Ianto smiles, and it's real, if grim. "This may be our sort of case. One of our press contracts and one of our witnesses..." He flicks to the case files. "So - "

Gwen clears her throat, and glances at the screen. Ianto looks back at it.

_Torchwood: Access denied.  
>SH<em>

There's only a split second of silence before Jack says, "I don't think so," and reaches for the laptop. Ianto puts his hand over Jack's, stops him.

"No hacking. Make your calls, I'll make mine. We've made enough enemies in law enforcement for my taste," he says.

"Bossy," Jack says, a smirk playing around his lips. "_Assertive_. I like it."

"Boys," Gwen interrupts, if amused.

Just like that, Jack is the Captain again. "No one revokes our access without a damn good reason," he says firmly. "Maybe there's something to this."

"No 'I told you so's," Ianto warns Gwen, half a joke. "I'm sure PC Davidson will be happy to hear from you."

She gives his arm a shove and he laughs as she goes off to investigate. Jack is still very, very close to him. He can't say he minds.

"Good," Jack says lightly, half a murmur. "You got rid of her."

"You only said yes to get me alone? What about the pride, the honor, the access of Torchwood Three and the work we do?"

He can feel Jack's braces against his hips. He enjoys that entirely too much. "Have it your way," Jack says, flippant, teasing. "_Work_."

"You talk too much," Ianto answers, and can't say that he minds too much when Jack dispenses with words and kisses him.

It's 7 AM when both their cell phones go off. "I need you both here now," Gwen is insisting.

"Where is 'here' exactly?" Ianto has to ask.

"I texted you coordinates - " God, she's tetchy.

Jack seizes the phone from Ianto. "Thanks, Gwen, we'll be there in a flash." He hangs up on her and kisses Ianto's forehead. "Get some clothes on. We're going to London."

Ianto just decides to give up on this morning. At least he has fond memories of last night. "Right."

As per the rules, Gwen isn't in the SUV and Ianto's had a full cup of coffee, so Jack gets to play '40s standards (and occasionally sing along, loudly, with gestures). God only knows what people would think of _bloody Torchwood_ if the windows weren't tinted.

Gwen is all pink-cheeked and annoyed when they meet her at a cafe on Baker Street. _Still._ "_SH_. Sherlock Holmes. I knew I recognized that signature, he signs his blogs with it - he's a detective," she explains to Ianto, mildly surprised at the blank look on his face. "He wrote a book - God, I'm never the literate one."

"I've read it," Jack says tersely. "His record's very impressive, but his clearance is _not_ higher than ours, I know that."

"Get the Home Secretary to shame him into giving us the case," Ianto suggests to Jack, only half-serious.

Gwen's eyebrows shoot up at that. "Ahaha, _not_ going to happen," she informs them. "Shame? Not this man."

Jack is Jack, so he asks the question they're both thinking. "What'd he do?" he asks, keeping his face carefully free from amusement.

She opens her mouth to say it then snaps her lips shut at second thought. "He - he said I was - never mind it!"

"Personally I mind whatever offense he did to you _very much_," Ianto interrupts, calmly deadpan, "so go on."

They both just look at her for a long moment and finally she puts her hands up in apology, takes a breath, and says, "He called me a Welsh beat cop. Not that it's an insult, it _isn't_, but dismissing Torchwood out of hand like that?"

Ianto watches her awkwardly sink back in her cafe chair, bemused. "Then why are you insulted?"

Gwen barely glances at the door as it swings open and shuts behind two men entering. "I'm _not_, I said. Anyway, I spoke to the detective leading the investigation, DI Lestrade. He says we can liaise, if it is our sort of case..."

"But it's Holmes's sort, so it's Holmes's case," Ianto figures with idle cynicism, and settles back against his own chair in mild annoyance with his coffee cupped needily close in his hands.

Jack is the only one who isn't completely startled when a tall man dressed in black swiftly approaches their table. Gwen sits up straight, and musters a smile. "Hello, Mr Holmes."

Holmes's eyes rake over the three of them – subconsciously, Ianto straightens in his chair, reminded of his father's piercing looks – and before Ianto can really form any sort of impression besides _very oddly__handsome_, he speaks, with the detached bemusement of an outsider. "_Why _are you at my cafe?"


	2. Chapter 2

"_Why_ are you at my café?" Sherlock asks the Torchwood team in a tone that's nothing short of imperious, and John wonders, not for the first time in the last few hours, if he's been proven a total masochist for taking on the job of translator and caretaker of the world's only consulting detective.

"Dr. Watson and I thought the lot of us could grab a cuppa," Gwen Cooper says, with admirable tolerance and restraint.

"To liaise," John interjects helpfully.

Sherlock looks at John with this blank expression, like John's just told him to get up on the table and dance to Kylie Minogue. "Why would that help?"

"Let's start over," the bloke in vintage military gear suggests, and stands to offer a hand to Sherlock. "Sherlock Holmes! Captain Jack Harkness, good to meet you."

Sherlock turns that expression on Harkness, and John decides to do something before Sherlock can insult the team any more than he's already done. "John Watson. Dr. Watson," he supposes midway through his introduction to the table at large.

The man in the nice suit seems just as eager to keep this conversation from backsliding into snark and condescension. "Ianto Jones." He shakes John's hand. "And you seem to've met Gwen."

"Why Captain?" Sherlock asks once there's a split second of silence he can fill.

Harkness answers the question without missing a beat. "I served back in the day, during the war, check out the stripes."

"And by the war you mean World War II?"

"Sorry, what?" Gwen interrupts, apparently unable to help herself. "That's mad – "

"Gwen," Ianto sighs.

"Sherlock – " John starts, in much the same tone as Jones, but of course he isn't listening.

"He's wearing well-worn, high quality genuine vintage military dress," Sherlock says to Gwen in weary condescension, "most likely worn by the American volunteers in Britain during the Blitz, if the insignia and his accent bear anything out, so either your 'Captain' Jack is both a fraud and a poor researcher, which I doubt, he earned _the stripes_ back in the 1940s, or he is completely insane and believes he earned those stripes in the 1940s. And your conman's routine is entirely too well-practiced to be the work of a madman," he informs Harkness, "so we obviously have a time traveler gracing us with his presence."

This is too much for John. He'd almost respected Sherlock's deductive mind, too. "Let's just have some tea," he tries.

"Please," Jones says, with a _get me out of here_ polite smile.

"Sit," John tells Sherlock, in his best brook-no-argument tone, and moves a chair over for himself.

Harkness is smiling enigmatically at Sherlock when John glances at him. "I'm not a conman," he says, friendly enough.

"Just what a conman would say," Sherlock deadpans.

"Some tea and then we'll get to business, I think," Jones says, as though the two egos haven't spoken a word.

"There's no business," Sherlock says, seamlessly switching tracks. "The suicides are my case."

"But how can suicides be linked?" Harkness scoffs.

"Easily. How can people travel in time?" Sherlock fires back.

"Easily," Jones deadpans. "They're not linked. We just want to look into Jennifer Wilson."

They're boring Sherlock, if the look on his face is any indication. That's disconcerting. Nothing good has come from that. "Because you suspect she's one of your paranormal cases."

"No one said this was paranormal," Gwen reassures them.

"You're _Torchwood_," Sherlock pronounces pointedly. "You have a reputation."

"They do?" John asks, blankly.

"We do?" Harkness echoes, with just enough sarcasm to make John start to dislike him a bit, charming or not. (The conman deduction is starting to make sense, actually; he's trying far too hard to impress everybody in the café, nonetheless at the table.)

"Don't be cute," Sherlock says tartly. "I emdon't/em share my cases."

"There's no harm in letting them look in on it," John tries. "To see if it is a Torchwood case."

"It's not," Sherlock informs them tersely.

Gwen smiles at the passing waitress to bring her over. "We wouldn't be asking if we didn't have reason," she says, surprisingly polite for someone who looks like she might punch Sherlock in the face if he keeps talking (which he will).

"Then tell me your reasons," Sherlock says without missing a beat.

Harkness smiles that polite American smile and says, "I'm sorry, that's classified."

"Classified. Naturally," John says, lightly cynical.

"Has this got something to do with the affairs?" Sherlock asks, as though he's asking for the time. John cringes.

Gwen looks blank. "How did you - "

He rolls his eyes. "Please, you know who I am, surely you can guess."

"You deduced," Jones says, in a clipped yet utterly helpful tone.

"Well. It wasn't very difficult," John says delicately.

Gwen scoffs at John, who sends her an apologetic look. Harkness cuts in. "We'll bring what we have to your office," he says. "And see what a little teamwork can do. Does that work for you, Holmes?"

"We haven't got an office," Sherlock says smoothly, "but I suppose a liaison wouldn't be out of the question."

Now John is confused. Wasn't Sherlock fighting tooth and nail mere minutes ago? "Well - we're right across the street, as you know - so whenever you can stop by - "

"I expect I don't have to tell you that time is of the essence," Sherlock interrupts swiftly.

"We'll fetch the information and be right over," Harkness assures them.

"Lovely," Gwen says, and moves to stand before anyone else can. "Tea and evidence, yeah?"

"Sounds great," John confirms, and wonders not for the first time if Gwen is single. "I'll... try and keep him in one place for you."

"No promises," Sherlock says, at his phone again.

"We should go. Ianto, get us coffee," Harkness requests of Jones, and gives John a fresh handshake. "Good to meet you both. Really."

"Of course," Sherlock says drolly, seeming to have given up on the conversation now that the case talk is over. "I recommend the espresso."

"Double shot," John agrees.

"Naturally," Jones says, with that brisk condescending tone and smile of his, and goes on, as Gwen and the "Captain" wander off together to the black SUV parked outside.

"Was that really necessary?" John asks Sherlock, unable to help himself. "All that time-traveler stuff? They're going to think you're a crackpot."

"He's wearing vintage military gear and I'm the crackpot?" Sherlock retorts.

John sighs. "There are eccentrics in the world, Sherlock - "

Sherlock barely manages to keep from rolling his eyes. "_Really_, I hadn't noticed - "

" - and you're one of them, so, thrown stones, glass houses," John says as non-judgmentally as possible.

Sherlock stares at him with that _what must it be like to be so incredibly, insufferably stupid every day of your miserable life_ expression. "Good lord you're boring sometimes," is the delicate way he voices that thought.

"Right," John says, feeling quite a tit for no apparent reason. "Shall we go? You know, look over what we have - "

"We have plans," Sherlock interrupts him without any apparent interest in what John might have meant to say, "and we're going." He climbs to his feet and turns heel towards the door, leaving John to follow like the sad, pathetic, but _utterly intrigued_ man he is.

Sherlock vanishes five minutes after the meeting at the cafe, as is his usual style. When John finally gives in and texts him, Sherlock answers with a simple emGo away. SH/em that pretty well sums his relationship with the man up, so he does as the madman says and goes for the teakettle.

"You've got police here, dear," Mrs Hudson pops in to say.

"Yes, nothing to worry about," John promises her.

Mrs Hudson smiles broadly at that. "Oh, tea on your off-hours, I see - so good to see you bonding with Sherlock's co-workers... well, he certainly won't - "

John takes pause as Mrs Hudson goes on with her assumptions and nearly corrects her, then decides better of it. "I wouldn't call them co-workers, but you can let them in..."

"Oh, of course, dear," Mrs Hudson says in brisk apology, and opens the door to allow Gwen, Jones and Harkness in. "Come along then - hello there," she adds to Harkness, who flashes her a grin. _Oh, come on_, John can't help but think. _Mrs Hudson?_ He couldn't handle her, anyway.

"Hello," Gwen greets John warmly. "Ah... nice flat."

"It isn't. But thank you. I've only just moved in," John assures her. "Mostly Sherlock's things, still. Yes, that's his laptop," he adds to Jones, who's hovering around the laptop with what looks like a highly technological watch, the sort Harry keeps buying him and he keeps taking back to the store.

"I wondered," Jones says, as though he wasn't clearly thinking about stealing the bloody thing for whatever reason, and John starts to wonder about these Torchwood people, and specifically, emwhy Sherlock left him alone with them./em

"Right, so, I'll make us some tea and once Sherlock's here, we can get right to it," John decides for everyone, and stands, hobbling forward on his cane.

"War injury?" Harkness supposes, against all known laws of etiquette, and John just nods vaguely before going into the kitchen.

Apparently Gwen follows him. "Hello - just wondered if you had any biscuits, Ianto's a bit peckish," she says with another of those smiles.

"Yeah... I don't think we've - I'll look," John interrupts himself, because Gwen Cooper just asked him for biscuits. He's going to look for them.

"I think I can handle the tea," Gwen says dryly, and fills up the kettle. "Don't mind Jack. He can't help himself. Hopeless case."

"I know the type," John deadpans, and Gwen laughs. It's a nice sound; he doesn't think he's heard a woman laugh in a _really_ long time, especially not at anything he's said. "So, you do the spooky stuff. Never heard of Torchwood, to be honest, so..."

"No spookier than what you do," Gwen promises him.

"Yeah. 'Course," John says, non-committal, standoffish instantly; after so many years with Harry he knows a practiced liar when he meets one. "People get ideas in their heads - well, you know." What is he even saying? At least she's smiling.

"You should hear the rumors," Gwen tells him, and goes on as she prepares the tea. "Oh - how do you take it?" she interrupts her little monologue.

"Er - sugar, thanks." She might have just caught him looking at her. She's definitely married or something - wait, what would Sherlock do?

That's a terrible motto.

Still, he does it, and there's the ring on her finger. She's married. _Of course._ "Well. People jump to conclusions," he answers Gwen's last anecdote about Torchwood. "I mean. About the suicides - well, no need to get ahead of ourselves."

"John, you'd better have started the tea, Torchwood is here," Sherlock announces as he gets in the door.

John hears Jones saying "Hello, then," in his usual cynical tone, and glances askance at Gwen, who gives an apologetic shrug. The two of them head into the main room with the tea, and Sherlock stares at Gwen as she sets the tea in front of everyone.

"You made this?" Sherlock asks her slowly, not even sitting yet.

"Yes," Gwen says, maybe a bit on the defensive.

Sherlock sits, apparently unwillingly, and Harkness doesn't miss a beat handing the paper file off to him the minute it looks as though he fully intends to ignore his tea like the bastard he is. He takes it without a thank-you or anything so coarse, and reads silently.

John gratefully drinks his tea, and receives a sharp look from Sherlock the second his cup leaves his lips. _What?_

_Idiot_, the look on Sherlock's face clearly says, but instead he says in a surprisingly civil tone, "You can't suspect alien involvement."

What? John runs that sentence through his head again.

"I'm afraid we do," Gwen says. "It's the one link they have in common - alien contact - "

"Don't be absurd, it's not the only link," Sherlock speaks over her, then continues on. "Contact with Torchwood - whether or not they remember it, of course - "

"Hold on, aliens?" John interrupts skeptically - wow, his manners have vanished as well, after all this time with Sherlock. "Weren't you just saying things like time travel were - "

"Do keep up, John. They were keeping up appearances. They'll be fully honest now because they've drugged us," Sherlock says, with idle confidence, "though I can't be sure with what. Don't drink any more of that, John."

"You might have mentioned that before I did," John can't help but point out.

"You'll live," Sherlock says dismissively. "We're useful to them now, they won't let us die. So." He shuts the file. "Are we liaising, or have you stolen all the information from the flat yet?"

Jones just barely cracks a smile. "We would appreciate a mind like yours on this case, Mr Holmes."

"I'm sure you would," Sherlock says, without the slightest bit of modesty. "Now we can speak honestly, and you can give my assistant the antidote."

"I'm not his assistant," John tries to explain to Gwen, even though there's no point impressing her anymore.

"You drive a hard bargain, Holmes," Harkness says, but pulls a vial from his pocket and doses up John's tea. "All clear."

"You drugged the tea," John repeats to Gwen incredulously. "With what?"

"Your tea," she says, apologetically. "And Holmes's. You'd have been perfectly fine – "

"Oh, thanks, that's better," John retorts, and drinks his antidote-laden tea then.

"No more games," Sherlock says bluntly to Torchwood. "We've a case to solve, let's _solve_ it. John, you come with me, and Harkness - Jones, Cooper, I expect you're capable of doing the research involved. Watch your phones."

"He texts," John explains in an undertone, and fetches his coat.

"Where are we going?" Harkness asks, annoyingly upbeat.

"The skips," Sherlock says simply, and ties his scarf back around his neck. "Try and keep up."

"Ha, no problem," Harkness says, grinning and appreciative for some reason, and follows Sherlock out the door even more closely than John can. "Dumpster-diving! Good times."

"Oh god," John says under his breath as they descend the stairs. He's just been drugged by a pretty, married woman, cured by a time-traveling American, and now, rummaging through skips. But his cane's behind him, his hands are steady, and aliens exist.

It's been a hell of a day.


End file.
